


to love is to burn

by astarisms



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Romance, and their carpet journey was so soft, but i don't have anything else to put it under, i feel like fluff is TOO light a term for this, i'm rereading city of brass right now, it inspired me to pull this out of the ole wip box and dust it off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24268633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarisms/pseuds/astarisms
Summary: the more he burns her, the more she craves the flame.
Relationships: Darayavahoush e-Afsin/Nahri e-Nahid
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	to love is to burn

He thinks she doesn’t notice the way his gaze lingers on her, but how could she not when his eyes are like a brand against her skin? 

The first time she feels their touch is not quite two weeks into their journey, though the days are starting to blend together in a blur of green and brown and blue landscape, of the wind whipping through her hair, of the sun on her back and in her eyes, of homesickness and fear and anticipation and _Dara._

She returns from the oasis, rolling up the sleeves of his tunic until they’re not swallowing her whole and wringing the water from her dripping hair. She had been pleasantly surprised to notice that her ribs were less pronounced, not straining against her skin for the first time since she could remember.

He’s reclined on the carpet, arms tucked behind his head, and she feels her heart flutter at the sight of him, beautiful and terrible as he is. 

But then he looks over at her, and stares. She feels the weight of his eyes on her like a physical touch, but he tears them away after a moment. The butterflies in her stomach don’t seem to realize that he’s averted his gaze, though, and it’s possible that her body is more intuitive than she realizes, because not a minute later, after she’s taken up her spot beside him and takes a long drink from the skin, she feels it again.

She doesn’t look this time. She resists the urge to hide her face, or straighten her posture, or, Creator forbid, _blush_ , but it’s a struggle and one she’s not sure she’s winning.

“I’m tired,” she announces, wincing at the thready note to her voice. She keeps her eyes down, tracing the pattern of the rug, but she knows when he moves because the hazy, smoldering heat that always radiates off of him is no longer at her back.

Little good that does, when his gaze burns just as fiercely. 

She tugs her unruly, drying hair into a quick braid and wraps her scarf around her head, as if the thin fabric can save her from the scorching intensity of his eyes, as if it wouldn’t be consumed right along with her when it finally becomes too much and they set her alight.

Laying on her side, facing away from him, she tucks her arms beneath her head and half buries her face in the carpet, trying to stay the reckless beat of her heart and the incessant fluttering in her gut.

She is almost there, so close to unconsciousness, when she hears the soft, low timbre of his voice.

“Sleep well, little thief.”

And just like that, she is back to square one. Instead of counting sheep, she puts all the foulest curses she knows to his name until she finally falls asleep.

*

“That bow will sooner topple you than protect you,” Dara says, suddenly behind her when just moments ago he hadn’t been in sight, and she startles. Distracted as she had been, she hadn’t noticed the pressure of his gaze at her back.

 _I’m losing my touch,_ she thinks with a little despair as she spins to face him. He doesn’t laugh at her, but not without effort on his part, the thin press of his lips quivering as she scowls at him.

“You’re hardly much taller than me and it doesn’t topple you,” she retorts, embarrassment putting more heat to her words. It doesn’t deter him, and he takes the silver bow from her hands. The brush of his fingers against hers sends gooseflesh up her arm, and she doesn’t miss the way they linger a split second longer than necessary. 

Strange, how the warmth she feels when he touches her has nothing to do with the heat of his hand.

“Aye,” he concedes, luminous eyes dancing with the laughter he has so chivalrously repressed, “but I’ve had extensive training and the luxury of a decent meal here and there.” 

She purses her lips, unamused, and begins to cross her arms when he presses something cool and heavy into her hand. She glances down, surprised at the sight of his beautiful, embellished dagger curled within her fingers.

“Perhaps you will fare better with this,” he says, his voice softer with so little space between them, and when she looks up at him his eyebrow is raised in question.

Nahri tightens her grip around the hilt, smoothing her thumb over the finely inlaid jewels, repressing the urge to calculate the sum of their worth, and raises her chin to quirk a brow at him in return.

“I’m just as likely to fumble this as the bow,” she admits. Though the weight of it feels better in her hand already, she knows close contact is a risky endeavor on a good day, let alone against bigger, stronger, magical adversaries. 

A smile plays at the edges of his lips, and he reaches out to take her elbow, gently turning her around to face a sparse copse of trees and underbrush. 

“I don’t intend for you to get close enough for any harm to befall you,” he says at her ear, and she has to fight the shiver that runs down her spine at his nearness. “But we might make an excellent knife thrower out of you yet.”

“I have terrible aim,” she confesses, trying to rally her thoughts to focus on the weapon in her hand rather than the heat of him at her back, but he laughs, and then his fingers are light on her skin, raising her arm into the right position.

“So did I, once.”

Nahri throws, and when the dagger veers wildly off course and disappears into the edge of the underbrush, she attests none of it to his scalding touch or his breath against her ear. She turns to him with a simple, “I told you,” and he grins, summoning it back to his hand. He presses it back into hers.

“Again.”

*

The scent of buttery lentils reaches her from where she washes up at the oasis — probably the last one they would encounter for the rest of their time in the desert, Dara had warned — and she splashes the cool water over her face and arms and chest once more, scrubbing off all the sand she can reach, before shaking out her tunic and pulling it back over her head.

She returns to their small camp, feeling better if not entirely refreshed, though she brightens at the sight of him before the fire, a frustrated crease between his brow. It smoothes when he looks up and sees her approaching, and she settles across from him.

“I hope that look means you’ve finally caught me a goat,” she teases, and though he cringes in disgust, she’s acutely aware of the way his eyes light up in amusement at their game. 

“Roast goat leg over saffron rice, my lady,” he returns, pushing the pot of lentils towards her.

She sighs in exaggerated pleasure, and doesn’t miss the subtle shift in his expression, the way his eyes brighten further in the same way she’d witnessed other men’s darken. She hides another smile, taking a bite. 

Exhausted as they both may be, she craves this part of the day. The easy banter and their conversations that take nearly every twist and turn imaginable, save for his own past and the war. But she’s learned how to maneuver around those topics, skirting the edge without pushing him to the point of silence, and she finds a great deal of enjoyment out of listening to him.

And out of being heard. Once she realized he had, in fact, been paying attention when he’d asked her all sorts of benign and personal questions, she had felt both a terrible weight in her chest and a strange sort of a lightness; the heaviness her words carried now that she knew that someone else was listening and perhaps compiling a list of strengths and weaknesses as she might do was disarming. 

The initial gripping fear of opening up to him had nearly stolen her breath, before she recognized his interest for what it was — he _cared._

And then, she felt herself softening. Warming to him, _trusting_ him, _wanting_ to tell him more, in exchange for what she could draw from him in return. It is a terrifying, freeing kind of lightness, to trust him enough to tell him, to trust him enough to listen.

It’s a funny thing, that his attention might feel as heavy and warm as the weight of his eyes on her back or the heat of his hand upon her skin, that she should crave the former even more fiercely than she craves the two latter.

When she meets his eyes over the fire again, he smiles, and her heart fumbles its beat. She leans back, lifting her chin in appraisal to distract from all the ways his very presence affects her.

“I believe I still have questions that need answering,” she says, and though his expression morphs into one of exasperation, and he pushes a hand through his hair in that utterly distracting way of his, the smile doesn’t slip. He raises his goblet towards her, as if in a toast.

“Your wish is my command.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about them @herafshin on twitter or @astarisms on tumblr ♥️


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